The flatworms, flat worms, Platyhelminthes, or platyhelminths are a phylum of relatively simple bilaterian, unsegmented, soft-bodied invertebrates. Unlike other bilaterians, they are acoelomates, and have no specialised circulatory and respiratory organs, which restricts them to having flattened shapes that allow oxygen and nutrients to pass through their bodies by diffusion. The digestive cavity has only one opening for both ingestion and egestion ; as a result, the food cannot be processed continuously.
The Gulf of Maine is a large gulf of the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of North America. It is bounded by Cape Cod at the eastern tip of Massachusetts in the southwest and by Cape Sable Island at the southern tip of Nova Scotia in the northeast. The gulf includes the entire coastlines of the U.S. states of New Hampshire and Maine, as well as Massachusetts north of Cape Cod, and the southern and western coastlines of the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, respectively.
Acoelomorpha is a subphylum of very simple and small soft-bodied animals with planula-like features which live in marine or brackish waters. They usually live between grains of sediment, swimming as plankton, or crawling on other organisms, such as algae and corals. With the exception of two acoel freshwater species, all known Acoelomorphs are marine.
Carcinus maenas is a common littoral crab. It is known by different names around the world. In the British Isles, it is generally referred to as the shore crab, or green shore crab. In North America and South Africa, it bears the name European green crab.
Rapana venosa, common name the veined rapa whelk or Asian rapa whelk, is a species of large predatory sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc or whelk, in the family Muricidae, the rock shells.
The Lessepsian migration is the migration of marine species across the Suez Canal, usually from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and more rarely in the opposite direction. When the canal was completed in 1869, fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and other marine animals and plants were exposed to an artificial passage between the two naturally separate bodies of water, and cross-contamination was made possible between formerly isolated ecosystems. The phenomenon is still occurring today. It is named after Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French diplomat in charge of the canal's construction.
Symsagittifera roscoffensis, also called the Roscoff worm, the mint-sauce worm, or the shilly-shally worm, is a marine worm belonging to the phylum Xenacoelomorpha. The origin and nature of the green color of this worm stimulated the curiosity of zoologists early on. It is due to the partnership between the animal and a green micro-algae, the species Tetraselmis convolutae, hosted under its epidermis. It is the photosynthetic activity of the micro-algae in hospite that provides the essential nutrients for the worm. This partnership is called photosymbiosis, from "photo", "light", and symbiosis "who lives with". These photosynthetic marine animals live in colonies on the tidal zone.
Convolutidae is a family of acoels. It contains more than a third of all known acoel species.
Hemigrapsus sanguineus, the Japanese shore crab or Asian shore crab, is a species of crab from East Asia. It has been introduced to several other regions, and is now an invasive species in North America and Europe. It was introduced to these regions by ships from Asia emptying their ballast tanks in coastal waters.
Geoplanidae is a family of flatworms known commonly as land planarians or land flatworms.
Bipalium is a genus of large predatory land planarians. They are often loosely called "hammerhead worms" or "broadhead planarians" because of the distinctive shape of their head region. Land planarians are unique in that they possess a "creeping sole", a highly ciliated region on the ventral epidermis that helps them to creep over the substrate. Native to Asia, several species are invasive to the United States, Canada, and Europe. Some studies have begun the investigation of the evolutionary ecology of these invasive planarians.
Platydemus manokwari, also known as the New Guinea flatworm, is a species of large predatory land flatworm.
Macrostomidae is a family of small basal free-living flatworms, and are found in marine, brackish, and freshwater environments. There are currently about 180 named species in this family.
Caprella mutica, commonly known as the Japanese skeleton shrimp, is a species of skeleton shrimp. They are relatively large caprellids, reaching a maximum length of 50 mm (2.0 in). They are sexually dimorphic, with the males usually being much larger than the females. They are characterized by their "hairy" first and second thoracic segments and the rows of spines on their bodies. Body color ranges from green to red to blue, depending on the environment. They are omnivorous highly adaptable opportunistic feeders. In turn, they provide a valuable food source for fish, crabs, and other larger predators. They are usually found in dense colonies attached to submerged man-made structures, floating seaweed, and other organisms.
Kenkia glandulosa, the pink planarian, is a flatworm in the family Kenkiidae. It is found only in the Devil's Icebox cave in Rock Bridge Memorial State Park in Boone County, Missouri, USA. The rarity of this species was once used as an argument to prevent the construction of a shopping mall in the area.
Pterois is a genus of venomous marine fish, commonly known as lionfish, native to the Indo-Pacific. It is characterized by conspicuous warning coloration with red or black bands, and ostentatious dorsal fins tipped with venomous spines. Pterois radiata, Pterois volitans, and Pterois miles are the most commonly studied species in the genus. Pterois species are popular aquarium fish. P. volitans and P. miles are recent and significant invasive species in the west Atlantic, Caribbean Sea and Mediterranean Sea.
Platydemus manokwari, also known as the New Guinea flatworm, is a large predatory land flatworm that has become an invasive species in many countries.
Otomesostoma auditivum is a free-living, hermaphroditic flatworm in the order Proseriata, found in brackish and freshwater environments. It is a palearctic species living in shallow-water coastal habitats, and occurring in some freshwater lakes far from the sea.
Climate change and invasive species refers to the process of the environmental destabilization caused by climate change. This environmental change facilitates the spread of invasive species — species that are not historically found in a certain region, and often bring about a negative impact to that region's native species. This complex relationship is notable because climate change and invasive species are also considered by the USDA to be two of the top four causes of global biodiversity loss.
Gyratrix hermaphroditus is a species of rhabdocoel flatworm in the family Polycystididae.
